Funding exchanges with Germany and France

Todt explains that the fact that her interests and her host's overlapped helped to ensure the success of her stay; six weeks at the Zoological State Collection in Munich (read the blog). It was an intense but fruitful period that enabled her to exchange expertise and to closely work with the German cooperation partners, making use of their laboratory and library facilities and of their technical skills.

Todt's overseas stay was funded by DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service. Both Germany and France have established specific programmes to support exchange activity with Norway. The French programme is the Aurora mobilitetsprogram. Both have a deadline in 2009 of 2 September.

Todt says that the application process is relatively simple; basically a short project description, time plan, CV and letter of invitation. She does caution that the application evaluation process can be time-consuming. Her submission in September 2008 was not approved until February 2009. However, she adds that the support was good: over 2500euro for the six-week stay. Costs for material and equipment have to be provided by the local partner.

If you have a French or German collaborator or research partner, or know someone you would like to build a better research relationship with in either France or Germany - investigate these two programmes. Both Aurora and the DAAD aim to strengthen ties between these countries and Norway by facilitating researcher exchanges.

Read more below about Christiane's stay in Germany. (the image above is a confocal laser scanning maximum projection image of a 6 days old solenogaster larva, anti-alpha-tubulin labeling; white arrows mark the pair of protonephridia.)